Saturday, June 27, 2015

Advice for Arguing with Millennials

RUSH: Max in Scottsdale, Arizona, next up, how are you, sir?
CALLER: Thanks, Rush. It's a pleasure to speak with you. My dad recently gave me a signed copy of your book, "See, I told you so." It belonged to my grandpa. I've been reading it a little bit. It seems like things have gotten a lot worse. You wrote about Ice-T and a song about killing cops and how they're really celebrated. And I'll tell you that today that pop culture, and hip hop in particular, is even worse than it was back then.
And today what it means to be a man and a rugged individual is no longer something that's respected or celebrated. It's ridiculed and we hold up these other guys like Ice-T and the cop killers. It makes me feel kind of alone out here trying to live up to my grandparents and their values. It was cool opening your book and seeing all this stuff and I appreciate it. But I'm a little lost as to where we go today and also wanted to check in on your marketing plan for Millennials and see how that was going.
RUSH: You want to know how my marketing plan for Millennials is going.
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: Not very well. (laughing) What do you think, how's it going?
CALLER: You kind of keep it close to the vest.
RUSH: That's it. When you have a marketing strategy, my theory and philosophy is you don't announce it, you just implement it. If you admit to people that you're targeting them for anything, either to separate them from their money or to get them to change their mind and agree with you, why tell them that that's your objective, because they just prepare a resistance to you.
So I'm prepared not to give any details of the secret marketing plan to persuade Millennials. And I'm not going to now. I'm not going to now either. It's not going to be easy, and I'll tell you why. And again, I hate to be repetitive. But I'm sure there are people listening today that haven't in a while. I'm sure there's all kinds of people tuning in today, Snerdley, who just want to gloat and they're hoping to hear all kinds of sadness and anger and misery. I'm not going to give them the satisfaction of that. But the Millennials in this country, the vast majority of them, they know things aren't right. Most everybody does.

This isn't the United States of America that most people know or expect, not economically, not in terms of people's good vibes about the future. But the percentage of people in poll after poll think the country is going in the wrong direction and the number keeps expanding. Here's the difference, though: In previous times when people have thought the country was in the wrong direction, or in the right direction, either one, there was always, in the world of politics, people always tied those opinions to a particular political party or a particular president given who was in power.
Meaning, when the economy was in the tank, the president got the blame for it. When the country was on the wrong track, the president and his party got the blame for it. And when parties lost elections, particularly if they lost big in landslides, then it was incumbent upon that party to respect public opinion, go out and openly promise the changes they were going to make to once again appeal to people who voted against them.
That's gone because today's Millennials do not associate any of the current circumstances of the country with the political party in power. Amazingly, everybody's blaming the Republicans for everything, and the Republicans haven't been in power for six years. The Republicans had nothing to do with what happened in Charleston, South Carolina, had nothing to do with any mass shooting. The Republicans had nothing to do with what went on in Baltimore. The Republicans had nothing to do with what went on in Ferguson. The Republicans had nothing to do with the economic policies in the last seven years, and yet Millennials blame them. And a lot of other people blame the Republicans. It's the most amazing thing

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